Google s effect on language teaching for educational purposes

A recent development in digital technology, machine translation (MT), is improving its ability to translate with accuracy in both grammar and the lexicon and is also becoming increasingly available for educational purposes to language students. With the adoption of other electronic teaching and learning technologies, it seems likely that machine translation will become a resource that students can rely on in a second language to complete their assignments. Students were asked to present an essay in their first language in this study and it was then translated into English via a web-based translation engine. To determine grammatical errors, the resulting English text was analyzed. The analysis showed that the translation engine could not generate error-free text. Though judging by international testing standards, the level of accuracy in many institutions is approaching the minimum required for university admission. This paper argues, on the basis that MT should continue to improve, this technology will have a deep influence on the teaching of languages for educational purposes, and with creative utilize, it will permit the impact to be positive for both the students and their instructors.

Google s effect on language teaching for educational purposes Keywords:

Language for educational Purposes , Machine translation , Google Translate